Wine economists unite

A couple of weeks ago, Karl Storchmann made me aware of the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE). I somehow got sidetracked, visited the website once but that was it. Now I revisited the AAWE and found out that they held their first ever congress in my dear home town of Trier in 2007. I couldn’t believe it. Their second conference was held in Portland, Oregon in 2008 and for 2009 they have selected Reims/Epernay in France as venue. This makes me somehow proud to come from this small town tucked away in the Mosel river valley in the far West of Germany.

The AAWE (please do not confuse it with the American Association of Wind Engineering or the Association of American Wives of Europeans) is a private, non-profit, educational association open to members from all over the world. The Association publishes a semi-annual journal – the Journal of Wine Economics, organises scholarly conferences and forums for wine economics research.

On the website you can also find a very interesting blog (http://wine-econ.org) and I strongly recommend visiting, brousing through it will give you many insights in the wonderful world of wine, this time from an economics perspective. Have fun.

Holidays, at last…

We are on our way to Europe, having a break at Singapore Airport. Its a great place for spendind a couple of hours before “jumping” from Asia to Europe.

There the Mosel is waiting for us, and we will spend a couple of days with my mother in Trier before moving on to Franconia for another family visit.

I hear a whisper: wine, wine, wine, delicious wine!

My orchids must know…..

My garden is my treasure, as you probably know. We were very lucky to have such a splendid place for so long. Living in Asian capital cities finds garden enthusiasts like me often in dire straits as far as nature is concerned.

Most of my orchids were passed on to me by my friend Peter Hagen before he and his family left Indonesian after many years. I will pass them on to a friend as well.

The other day another one of my orchids, an orchid which was not very generous with blooming in the past, bloomed. Wandering about the garden, I wondered if the plant knew that I am leaving soon.

I know of course that the onset of the dry season is also the season for many orchids to bloom. But a nicer good-bye I could not have imagined.

A “special” Orchid…

..and the “normal” ones.

The Lion sleeps tonight?

Well, he did not sleep but he watched the football final between Spain and Germany from 2 this morning till 3:30.

Congratulations to the Spaniards, they were the better team. What to do with this Monday morning?

I experimented with video clip downloads on my blog. Well, its not always fine wine and delicious food.

It can be dancing too. How about a dance in the backyard?

Please watch first the cartoon character clip, then you’ll know what the “real people” in the second clip attempted to do. Not easy to follow examples, it seems. Enjoy the show.

We were not the only people who were inspired by the song. On You Tube is one of rather under-dressed young women trying to follow the same dancing instructions.

PS: Note – This is only a temporary blog entry.

Restaurants in Asia – Top Hat, Kuala Lumpur

I do not know what it is with these three letter words for restaurants, but another one of my favourite eating places in Kuala Lumpur is “Top Hat”, located in Jalan Kia Peng, the centre of town (www.top-hat-restaurants.com).

It looks very romantic not only in the night

The interior is very colorful

The food is amazing (here a typical Nyonya style appetizer)

The had a vegetarian pasta. Right, it is not true Western fusion or any Asian cousine, but I felt like having one. The food at Top Hat is excellent and shows great variety blending different local and foreign traditions. The desserts are to die for. The service is good as well. I can only highly recommend the place.

The wine was a “simple red” from Churchview Estate (www.churchview.com.au) from Margaret River, in Western Australia. Their ‘2004 Cabernet Sauvignon’ won the trophy for best CabSav in Australia at the Cowra Wine show.

I choose the ‘2004 Shiraz Premium Range’, a very deep red wine with intense dark fruit, plums and cherry aromas. The Shiraz was spicy and fresh which went very well with my pasta and some of the Asian dishes my friends had. It’s a big wine (15% alc.) with a good structure and a memorable finish.

If you intend to entertain friends or just yourself at Kuala Lumpur any time soon, pay a visit to this very memorable place.

Address
Top Hat Restaurant
No. 7, Jalan Kia Peng
50450 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Te.: +60-3-21428611

Australia: New Tax Regime on Wine and Beer

It came as a surprise when I learned yesterday from my “daily wine news” newsletter that the Rudd government intends to increase taxes on wine and beer by up to 300%.

This will increase the sales price of an ordinary glass of beer by about 46 cents and a glass of wine by 63 cents. The alcohol content is supposed to be the basis of the new taxation regime.

So cheap mass wines will be as heavily taxed as a superior quality wine given the same alcohol content. The ratio of this additional tax to the overall sales price, however, will be different.

Health care seems to be the prime motive for this move. After tobacco, now its alcohol which drifted into the field of vision of the health freaks. Of course the regulators have alcohol pops in mind. It seems that young girls abuse this kind of alcohol quite a bit.

I am not sure how many bottles of fine wine are going down in binge drinking. Dry wines are maybe not the stuff for teenage drinking parties anyway.

I guess this will not solve the problem. To learn how to deal with drugs is better achieved by demystifying them and by learning how to avoid intoxication. And wine is food in the first place. If we allow young people to experience this, the dangers are minor. Just look at Mediterranean culture where you hardly can find alcohol abuse among the young which is typical for Anglo-Saxon societies. In the end, teenagers will move on to cheaper sources of booze or other drugs.

In anticipation, the finance ministers might already count the additional dollars in their treasuries.

As a boutique vineyard, I feel we will not be too concerned. Our clients are not alcohol abusers. They also can afford the higher prices (and if not the producers will have to stomach the losses). Most likely the new burden will be shared between the two groups.

Then there is bartering, more and more common in rural areas of Australia because of the various taxes and impositions. You repair my roof for a couple of cases of prime wine. I slash you paddock for your locally produced beer.

Well, we will see what these do-gooders can achieve. And don’t forget, there are elections somewhere around the corner.

Cheers

Cool Climate Wines

“High Country – Cool Climate Wine” is what the label on the bottle said and that is why I bought it in my local duty free shop during my monthly ration collection.

Our own wine producing region, the Upper Goulburn Wine Region (www.uppergoulburnwine.org.au) used to call itself “High Country” for a while, before settling a couple of years ago for the new name and regional denomination.

The ‘2005 Miranda Cabernet Sauvignon’ from the King Valley Wine Region

The wine came from Miranda (or today Sam Miranda), a 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, and retailed for US$ 15.30 here in Jakarta. The price suggested “a wine for every day”, nothing special but enjoyable. And enjoyable it was. In fact I loved the mid-palate weight, the structure, the aroma of dark fruit and the long and strong finish.

As always while writing blog entries I was enticed to do some more searching on the net and to find out more about the circumstances of the wine and/or the winery where it came from.

Last year I visited the King Valley for the first time. It’s a spectacular entry if you come from the Mansfield side, breathtaking views down the valley floor. This is Ned Kelly country, a kind of Australian version of Robin Hood. Vines and vineyards are high up on hill terraces, the lowest at Milawa at about 155 and the highest at the Whitlands plateau at about 800.

The cool climate allows the production of high quality grapes. The deep red clay loan soils are very fertile and well drained. In recent years a plethora of new/innovative and less usual varieties has been planted in the area such as Saperavi (from Georgia), Arneis (or Barolo Bianco from Piemont, Italy), Tannat, Petit Manseng ( a grape variety from the Pyrenees, France, producing aromatic, sweet wines), Mondeuse, Graciano, Marzemino, Dolcetto, Sangiovese and Tempranillo.

For more information please visit the excellent and very informative website of the King Valley Vignerons association (www.kvv.com.au) to learn more about this treasure trove of Victorian wines.

One finds boutique vineyards (such as Avalon Vineyards) next to the big corporates (such as Brown Brothers in Milawa). Other well known producers are: Pizzini Wines in Whitfield, Dal Zotto Estate is Cheshunt and of course Sam Miranda in Oxley Flats to name just a few. There are a lot of Italian names on the list of King Valley wine producers.

Miranda’s Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot are produced in Oxley on the floor of the valley. The labels on the wine bottles on the Miranda website (www.sammiranda.com.au) are different from the bottle I bought in Jakarta. I suppose that the “High Country” wine became ‘High Plains” wines, but I am not sure because the production dates do not suggest that this assumption is correct.

Miranda’s “Snow Road” label wines (low price end of A$ 12.-/bottle) show some “bizarre” blends (blends I would never consider to buy) such as ‘Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc’, or ‘Merlot Pinot Noir’. Rare varietal wines are presented under the “Symphonia” label.The flagship of the collection is certainly the “Sam Miranda” range of handcrafted wines exclusively sold at the cellar door.

Apropos cellar door. On a travel website I found under the heading, “Australia’s most unusual wineries”, a further hint why it might be worthwhile to visit the Sam Miranda Winery (http://travelaustralia.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=446482).

Allow me to cite from this source. It says about the Miranda cellar door:

“From an architectural viewpoint, the new cellar door at Sam Miranda winery is a standout. Designed by well-known Sydney architect, Alex Popov, this modern marvel literally towers over Victoria’s King Valley — 40ft to be exact. From the car park you’ll enter via a subterranean passage, giving you the feeling that you are submerging into an underground cellar. Contrary to your expectations, however, the passageway opens up to reveal a bright, airy tasting room which is lit up by light streaming in from the 40ft light tower which stands sentinel above the bar. But it’s not just the architecture that’ll catch your attention, the wines here are superlative.”

Well, if possible I will get some more of Miranda’s wines from my local bottle shop and next time we are in Glenburn, we might decide to go on a day trip to the King Valley and check out some of the wineries there.

Surprise surprise: Rees Miller wines in Jakarta

The other day when we went to our duty free bottle shop in Jalan Fatmawati we discovered to our great surprise a whole stack of wines from Rees Miller in Yea. Never before did such treasures reach our local water whole. The price was right too, 19.90 US$ we paid. It was a 2001 vintage, the Wilhelmina Falls and the Thousand Hills. David, you have to update your website now and add Indonesia as export destination of your wine. We are very happy with this unexpected development. Cheers to Upper Goulburn and Rees Miller.

The two bottles